What Tris did for Briar
by Sweet Sassy Sarah
Summary: Oneshot prologue to Spun on a Storm.


**A/N: So, I had a vote, and everyon voted to see this part of the story Talia. It's still in the 3rd person, but it mainly focuses on Tris, and is a oneshot. The beginning takes place before the beginning of Talia, so I hope you like it!! Thanks to **Kate of Carlay** for all your help!! Otherise, you, my dear readers, would not have known Talia's name!! :D**

What Tris did for Briar

Lady Trisana Chandler sat on the chair next to the window, and took off her spectacles that were tinted so she could be in the wind for long periods of time. She opened her eyes and immediately, the images she could see on the winds assaulted her vision.

She passed over most of them, as they didn't interest her. One, however, did. She saw the slave pens, full of iron and steel. And people.

It was an auction day. They happened once a week or so. There was a girl in one pen who Tris had been seeing lately. It seemed like whenever Tris caught a vision of her, she was either getting into a fight with the other prisoners, or was trying to escape.

The girl was only a couple years younger than Tris herself was. She had long, pale blonde hair, presently tangled and matted, and piercing blue eyes. Tris had noticed that whenever the guards of the slave pens looked at her with more than a cursory glance, she glared at them for a second, and then they looked away. It made Tris smile to see that her time in the pens and as a slave hadn't broken her.

Today was no different. The girl was trying to escape again, but the guards called out for them to file out of the pen and up to the auction block. Tris waited to see what would happen. The girl stood glaring at anyone who looked at her, and, once again, no one bought her.

_Tris? What are you looking at the slave pens for?_ her brother, Briar, asked through their mind connection. _Who is that girl?_ This question was much sharper, and Tris could see that Briar was looking at the blonde slave.

_She's a slave in the pens,_ Tris replied, sighing. She shoved away from the wall and put her spectacles back on. _Interested?_

_Hush._

_Briar, I probably know you better than our sisters and foster-mothers do, and I could hear that tone in your voice that said you were interested,_ Tris told him, smiling at the way he'd told her to hush.

_Enough yammering, Coppercurls. I'm trying to finish wrapping this _shakkan_. It was bent in all the wrong places and…_

_Okay, Briar,_ Tris said, cutting him off. She felt him smile through their connection, and shook her head.

xXx

Briar Moss sat next to his _shakkan_ and sighed. He could still see the girl from the slave pens. She was absolutely beautiful. He'd never seen anyone like her, and he'd seen a lot of pretty ladies.

This one was a slave. It was strange, Briar thought. He'd never seen anyone who pulled at him like this girl did. With just one glance, she wrapped his heart around her finger. He'd been with his share of women, but there was something about this one that was different.

It was disturbing that a girl like that one, so beautiful, was a slave, and he wondered why she hadn't been snapped up the second she was put in there. Most men he know would love the chance for someone like her in their beds.

He bristled at the thought of this girl in someone else's bed. Then he blinked, startled. Where had that thought come from? He didn't know, and didn't care. She looked like she could take care of herself.

xXx

Tris was having different thoughts than her brother. The girl had looked vulnerable. True, the vulnerability looked to be buried deep, but it was still there.

And Tris could tell that Briar was more than half in love with her already, and he'd only ever caught a glimpse of her once.

He was right, though. There was something about this girl. Tris could see it more clearly than Briar could, though in a different way. She'd never seen a girl, common or noble, who had snagged Briar's attention more thoroughly than this little slave girl had.

But there was something else. Something that seemed to be blocking any closer view Tris tried to have of her. It was interesting.

xXx

Tris kept a close eye on the slave girl whenever the wind blew the right way, and eventually found out that her name was Talia, through a vision that had been accompanied by sound, a rare occurrence.

There was another slave auction later the same week, but the girl had a slight bruise on her cheekbone and jaw, remnants of a pen fight from a few days before. No one bought her, again. It seemed like every time the girl got passed up in an auction, she seemed bolder and got into more fights with the others.

_Tris, are you purposely looking at the slave pens, or is that just what comes your way?_ Briar asked. Tris turned to see him in her doorway.

"A little of both. She just got passed up again. No one wants a bruised bedwarmer." Tris watched with interest as Briar's stance grew more tense, and his hands started to clench into fists. Interesting, she thought.

xXx

Early the next week, Tris's foster-sister Sandrilene fa Toren, Sandry, remembered an errand she had to run at the market. Tris, Briar, and their other foster-sister Daja Kisubo went with her, all in need of a little fresh air. As they neared the slave pens, Tris heard the noises first.

"Slave auction today," she murmured quietly. Briar heard her, but no one else did.

"Sandry, I have something I have to do quickly," Briar said, glancing toward the slave pens.

"We'll come with you," Sandry replied easily.

"You won't like where I'm going," Briar said, but led his sisters toward the slave auction that was already going on.

Tris watched as slave after slave was bought and paid for. When the one she'd been seeing, Talia was called forward onto the block, she felt Briar beside her stiffen slightly. She glanced up at him and saw that his face was completely impassive.

_Sandry,_ Tris said to her sister without letting Briar hear.

_Yes?_ Sandry asked. Tris could tell that Sandry was unhappy that they were there. She _deplored_ slavery, even something resembling it, like the marriage kidnappings of Namorn.

_Briar feels something for her,_ Tris said. _I don't know what it is, but there's something beyond what he's telling us. Or even thinking._

_Tris, only a blind person wouldn't be able to see that he's got some kind of feelings for her,_ Daja interjected, watching Briar. The second he'd seen Talia, all his thoughts and feelings had been trained on her. He wasn't even paying attention to his sisters.

"We'll take her," Sandry finally said. The slave girl looked out over the crowd like she was trying to find who her new owner was, and trying not to look too interested at the same time.

"Lady Sandrilene," the slave master said, straightening up. Everyone knew that Sandry had an abhorrence of slavery. "Surely you're joking."

"I don't joke, Master Jorn, and you know it," Sandry said. She sounded like she did when she was at her noblest. Tris and Daja shared a smile. Briar was still watching Talia, face calm, though the girls could tell his thoughts were all over the place. Tris could practically feel the pain Briar felt for the slave.

He handed Sandry a pouch with money in it. She took it wordlessly, knowing this was the reason he'd brought it in the first place.

"What, may I ask, do you need a girl like this for, my lady?"

"It is not your right to inquire as to what I plan to do with my slave," Sandry said. "Release her to me."

Tris slipped off when Master Jorn pulled Talia off the auction block roughly and made his way through the crowd. She walked up to the wall that looked over the water, and let the wind hit her full on.

She was used to the many images that passed now, used to not always having complete visions, and hardly ever having a vision that carried the sounds it made with it. She watched her family, with their new addition, begin the walk back.

She saw the girl look up at Briar and almost lose control of her jaw, and smiled. It seemed like Talia felt the same as Briar did, for the same inexplicable reason.

_Tris, where are you?_ Daja called. _We're done._

Tris turned from the wind. _I'm coming._ She caught up with her family a couple of blocks away from the slave market. She looked at Talia with sharp grey eyes and noticed the flicker of some emotion in Talia's eyes, and her own softened a bit when the girl looked away.

_Don't be too smug about this,_ Sandry warned. _The girl looks like she's about to spit on one of us._

_Briar's closest,_ Daja said, and Tris had to fight not to laugh.

_Bit of a handful for you, Briar?_ Tris asked him, and his lips twitched up at the corners.

_She'll warm up to me,_ he said confidently, and the three girls rolled their eyes, even though they knew he was probably right.

_You didn't just buy her because you want to bed her, did you?_ Daja asked, and Briar's eyes went flat and void of any emotion.

_You know me better than that, Daj',_ he said, and even in their minds, his voice sounded angry.

_I just wanted to be sure,_ the Trader girl murmured back.

_You give him too little credit,_ Tris said.

_Without Coppercurls, I wouldn't have known she existed._ Briar looked down at the girl whose arm he held, and his lips softened into a small smile.

**A/N: Review please!! :D**


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